During the past decades, there has been a rapid development in data processing and storing. In the field of information technology, a multitude of media to store information has been developed. They include floppy disks, compact disks (abbreviated as CD's), digital versatile disks (known as DVD's), USB flash drives, multitude of data cards and numerous other devices. However, these devices storing information have several properties limiting their field of application.
Compared to classical data storage (such as printed information) they are much more complex and therefore harder to produce. This makes them less economic in certain applications. It is for example hard to imagine that these devices could replace bar codes placed on articles in a department store. Though all these devices can easily perform the task of storing the (very limited) amount of data for the article (e.g. name of article, price, serial number, date of expiry, etc.), they are too complex and thus expensive to be used in such an environment. However, there may be other applications where a data-storage device encoding the data in an optical pattern (e.g. the said barcode) is not desirable. Though it is simple and therefore cheap to produce, it has the disadvantage that only a very limited amount of data may be encoded with it.
Moreover, it is generally easy to counterfeit a bar code, which makes it much less safe than more sophisticated data storage devices. One reason for this is the fact that the information is encoded in a visible pattern. Thus, copying the barcode may be enough to generate a counterfeit.
Another disadvantage of the optical pattern lies in the fact that deviations of the surface where the optical pattern is applied to (e.g. scratches and the like) may lead to malfunctions.
The relatively new technology disclosed in WO 2010/043422 and WO 2010/051802 overcomes the disadvantages of the established prior art mentioned above. The basic idea of the information carriers presented in these two publications is to use information carriers comprising a pattern of conductive and non-conductive regions.
In comparison to storing the information in an optical pattern, this technology has the advantage of being a lot harder to copy (and counterfeit). Moreover, the pattern of conductive and non-conductive regions might not lie on the surface of the information carrier. Thus, these information carriers are much more resistant to external influences, including, but not limited to, physical stress, scratches, humidity and the like.
At the same time, they can be produced in simple processes—thus making them much cheaper and more economic as the more complex devices mentioned above. The fact that they are less complex further enables them to be used in a multitude of applications. However, for certain applications a potential disadvantage of the information carriers described in WO 2010/043422 and WO 2010/051802 may be seen in that specific devices are needed to read out and decode the information stored on these information carriers (this is in fact a disadvantage of all data storage devices mentioned above). These devices are thus specially designed and optimized for the corresponding information carrier(s), which adds costs to the decoding method and system and makes it more expensive for the user.
During the rise of information technology, there has also been a rapid development in the sector of personal computers, laptops, smart phones, tablet computers and the like. In these devices, the usage of touch screens has become more common over the last years. Touch screens usually allow the user to induce an input by touching a designated area of these devices.
There are different technologies for these touch screens to operate, including resistive, capacitive, acoustic wave and infrared technologies. All these technologies are optimized to detect a human finger or a specially designed stylus that is brought into contact with the touch screen.
According to recent developments, systems including touch screens can also be used to recognize certain shapes of inanimate objects. For example, US 2010/0045627 discloses placing a specifically shaped object (a so-called signet) onto a touch screen, wherein the system will then compare the shape of this signet with shapes stored in a database. In case there is a match between the presented shape and a shape in the database, it will perform an action. Examples for these actions include giving access to restricted areas of a computer system, logging onto a certain user profile of a computer system and the like. However, the technology disclosed in US 2010/0045627 has several major drawbacks. First, this technology is limited to signets that are recognized by a pre-stored database. Thus, the system only works and performs certain actions if it recognizes a known object. Thus, this technology is limited in its usability, in particular with regard to interpreting shapes that are new to the system. Thus, these systems cannot be used to read out and decode encoded information being new to the system. This means in particular that the technology disclosed in US 2010/0045627 does not allow the touch screen to be an input device for information carriers new to the system.
Second, the technology disclosed in US 2010/0045627 entirely relies on the shape of the objects. The touch screen proposed in US 2010/0045627 for shape recognition is particularly optimized for an input signal being pressure imposed by a human finger or a stylus. However, the shape of an object is generally visible to the naked eye and furthermore detectable by touch.
There are numerous applications where these properties are disadvantageous. Likewise, it is desirable to establish a technology in which the touch screen can be used as an input device for structures prior not known by the system.